T-Mobile, never one to hold back from a good war of words, expressed their feelings towards the new shared data plan model that both Verizon and AT&T have introduced. As you can imagine, they are not fans of the approach, calling them “costly, complicated, and punitive.” They strongly feel that consumers will not benefit from them and that they are essentially tricking customers by placing focus on the “value” of the unlimited talk and text, even though today’s consumers use less of these services.

Here is the full statement:

“Unlike AT&T and Verizon, T-Mobile does not plan on introducing shared family data plans and believes consumers will not benefit from that model. AT&T and Verizon shared family plans are:

COSTLY – AT&T and Verizon are charging more for what consumers want by raising rates on data, but promoting the “value” by pointing to unlimited talk and text even though today many consumers use less of these services.

COMPLICATED – both plans force customers to share data when many customers don’t know how much data they’re using, which makes it hard to stay within their limit when trying to balance multiple users.

PUNITIVE – At the same time that AT&T and Verizon are making it harder for customers to manage overages, they are also charging overage rates of $15/GB for accounts with at least one smartphone.

Conversely, at T-Mobile we believe that:

Customers who pay more, should get more – Rather than having to account for each device on a shared family data plan, T-Mobile customers can use their existing data plan to power multiple devices, while still saving hundreds of dollars annually.

Data should be worry-free – With T-Mobile’s unlimited data plans, there is no surprise data cap or bill shock.

Data plans should be flexible and affordable – At T-Mobile, customers have the option of only paying for the amount of data each member of the family believes they will need.”

– Harry Thomas for T-Mobile

I would tend agree with Mr. Thomas’ statement that selling these as “unlimited talk and text,” but charging high prices for data at set limits that customers do not fully understand is probably the wrong approach. The days of heavy calling and texting are about to be behind us. Clearly AT&T and Verizon understand this and is probably the number 1 reason for this move.

That’s why we have done everything we can to help explain shared data plans. The last thing we want is for anyone to run into an issue or find a surprise charge on their bill at the end of the month. The best thing you can do is research, use calculators and simulations like we have done and then decide if shared plans will benefit you or not. Everyone’s situation is completely different. It’s time to start monitoring your data usage.